Meet Audio Envy’s Captain Payne By David Thomson Move over Jim Carrey, there’s a new audio cable guy out there who will happily hook you up at a value so affordable that it would be sacrilegious to your music, never mind downright disrespectful to your components, if you didn’t check him out… and you can, […]

By Armand Lewis There have been few lives as tortured, yet so prolific as Chet Baker’s. The lyrical trumpeter with the choirboy voice would record literally hundreds of albums while spending much of his life dealing with the horrors of addiction and other personal problems of his own making. Born in Oklahoma in 1929, this […]

Meet John Grado of Grado Labs who is being honored at this year’s LA&OC Audio Society Annual Gala with the Founder’s Award By David Thomson Does being born into the oldest family-run, audio manufacturing business in the world give one the innate drive to continue in its tradition of excellence? Is it in the DNA? […]

New: Bob Dylan -Trouble No More -The Bootleg Series Vol. 13/1979-1981 and Dylan’s John Wesley Harding Celebrates 50 Year Anniversary By Harvey Kubernik Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, has just issued Bob Dylan-Trouble No More-The Bootleg Series Vol. 13/1979-1981 this month. The deluxe nine-disc (8CD/1DVD) box set is […]

KAPLAN’S KORNER Best Soundtrack LP The Man In The High Castle I was a fan of Man In The High Castle author Philip K Dick from an early, impressionable age, I am a fan of the Amazon series as well which takes place in 1963. The soundtrack is the alternative versions of American Pop hits […]

Remembering beloved rocker Tom Petty who died in October at age 66 By Harvey Kubernik I was very sad to hear of the physical passing of Tom Petty who wrote the introduction to my 2014 book Turn Up The Radio, Pop, Rock, and Roll in Los Angeles 1956-1972. When I was West Coast Director of A&R at MCA […]

By Harvey Kubernik Canadian songwriter and poet/novelist Leonard Cohen waived a physical goodbye at age 82 on November 7, 2016, just after the release of his 14th album, the uncompromising and urgent You Want It Darker. November 7th will be the one year yahrzeit of his death. December 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the […]

By Armand Lewis Bulee “Slim” Gaillard was a true character. Self-taught, extroverted, a true globe-trotting hipster before the concept of “hip” really existed, Gaillard’s songs, infectious humor and self-invented jive language (called “Vout”) have not only stood the test of time, but reached something approaching icon status in twentieth-century popular culture. He was born in […]

Turntable tips for the vinyl afflicted By David Lancon (The following is a Public Service Announcement for those new to vinyl and for those long accustomed to vinyl culture) You say you just blew the mortgage on that rarest of rare northern soul, psycho-billy, ska jazz ten-inch EP by the Barstool Brothers only to have […]

KAPLAN’S KORNER Secret Weapon The WyWires phono cable might be the best component in my stereo and you really can’t see it. It’s like a stealth component in the war on noise. The instant I mounted it on the Ortofon 110 tonearm on the Merrill-Williams REAL 101.2 turntable I heard it. I mean didn’t hear […]

The immortal songwriter and singer Otis Redding has inspired countess musicians. A 2016 tribute concert, museum exhibit and a brand new autobiography, prove that his popularity and legacy remain at the forefront of the American music conversation By Harvey Kubernik In 2017, there is renewed awareness continuing around the immortal singer and songwriter Otis Redding. […]

A documentary celebrating the rockers’ “rags-to-riches-to-rags” story debuts this fall in select cities and on DVD and VOD — plus the OG lineup is on tour! By Suzanne Rush There’s just a limited amount of ferocious, free thinking kind of — I don’t want to say, oddballs. But we were all just built a little […]

By Dennis Loren “There is something very special and intimate about seeing and hearing an exceptional solo artist or great band performs in a small venue. When I lived in San Francisco in the late-‘60s, I was a regular at the larger venues, such as the Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore, the Straight Theater and Winterland, […]

By Armand Lewis In the late 1960s, jazz was in a severe slump and was beginning to re-define itself in a search for a more youthful audience. While some players like Miles Davis embraced a fusion of jazz, electronics and rock, others took a free jazz/spiritual approach or incorporated soul and world music rhythms and […]

More than two hours of performances by the beloved musician’s classic hits are captured on the timely Glen Campbell-Live Anthology 1972-2001 By Harvey Kubernik Aweek before Glen Campbell’s death at age 81 of Alzheimer’s in Nashville Tennessee, MVD Entertainment Group released Glen Campbell-Live Anthology 1972-2001. This definitive collection of Campbell’s work on DVD/CD from the […]

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As the son of Hall of Fame songwriter Carl Sigman (“It’s All In The Game,” “Ebb Tide,” “Crazy He Calls Me,” “What Now, My Love,” and many more), Michael Sigman grew up immersed in the pop and rock revolution o...

The Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship founder looks back while rocking on — with his new album, The Greatest Love by Harvey Kubernik Singer and songwriter Marty Balin the founder of Jefferson Airplane, hit maker of th...

Rudy Van Gelder Began Recording Jazz Greats Like Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Art Blakely and John Coltrane For Blue Note In His Parent’s New Jersey Living Room By Carter James ~ I often tell my friends who own record stores ...

For almost 50 years, Russ Solomon’s Tower Records chain, founded in Sacramento, reigned as one of the world’s premiere music retailers. In his new documentary, All Things Must Pass, filmmaker Colin Hanks examines the rise a...

THE MAN WHO SHOT THE ’70s Meet the mystery man who’s been one of rock music’s most prolific photographers — and has captured rock’s most famous faces from David Bowie to The Dead Boys by Sean Clifford ...

FIVE EASY PIECES OF VINYL CLEANING ADVICE T.H.E. SHOW NEWPORT BEACH MAY 29 – 31 The greatest HI-FI event of the year is upon us. T.H.E. Show Newport Beach has moved to the luxurious Hotel Irvine where you have the opportu...

NEW MUSIC RELEASES, A DOCUMENTARY AND A BOOK BY MUSIC CRITIC ROBERT HILBURN EXAMINE THE MAN IN BLACK By Harvey Kubernik ~ Inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, winner of a Grammy Life...

Colin Trueman doesn’t see lack of space as a limitation at VOD Music by Jonathan Morrow In 2009, Graham Jones came out with the insightful book Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops? A few years later it b...

What Is The Safest And Most Efficient Means Of Getting A Record Perfectly Clean? By Michael Baskin ou’ve just spent a hour or more pawing through the used bins at a record store, which may be 30 to 100 miles from home and, am...

DURING HIS GOLD RUSH Author Sharry Wilson mines Neil Young’s music and life in her biography of the rocker, Young Neil By Harvey Kubernik Since 2012, Neil Young has issued the albums Americana, Psychedelic Pill, A Letter ...

Remembering The Noted Sacramento Record Store Owner Who Defied The Digital Age By Harvey Kubernik his past April the Sacramento, California area lost, not only a citizen but, an avid music supporter and collector when journalis...

Every Day Is Record Store Day By Lance Barresi t’s kind of a bummer that we even have to have a Record Store Day. Grocery stores don’t get their own Day. Neither do bars, restaurants, or venues. Getting people out to brick ...

Record Store Day’s Documentary Tracks The Rise, Fall And Survival Of The Record Store By Michael Sigman wenty years ago, the UK boasted a thriving record-store culture, with over 2200 indie shops and as many as three on a sin...

TWO DAYS IN PARADISE By David Thomson It’s sick! Music, music, everywhere, and I forgot my American Express card. T.H.E. Show, (THE stands for The Home Entertainment) and the high end audio division of International CES (Cons...